


apples to apples

by diwata



Series: i follow rivers [7]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22948627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diwata/pseuds/diwata
Summary: Sarada is their love story come to life.“I didn't say I love you to hear it back. I said it to make sure you knew.”
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke
Series: i follow rivers [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596583
Comments: 14
Kudos: 134





	apples to apples

In the autumn, Hokage-sama drops Boruto off at the training grounds early each morning. He greets the genin squad cheerfully with a bright smile that threatens to outshine the sun. Before he pivots on his heel to leave, Hokage-sama turns to his eldest and says, “I love you.” The words have a finality to them, and a totality, too; in these moments, Sarada must look away. How lucky Boruto must be, she thinks, to have a father who says _I love you_ like it is a punctuation mark.

“Does he love me?” Sarada asks when she comes home, her glasses sliding down her small nose bridge. 

“Welcome home,” Mama says, reminding her of her manners. Still, she hastily drops the bag of groceries in her arms and rushes to her daughter at the door. Her mother pushes her glasses back up by the center.

Sarada kicks her sandals off, eyeing the grains of rice and red, ripe fruit now sprawled across the kitchen tiles. “I’m home, I’m home,” she submits.

“That’s better,” the older woman murmurs. She leans over and presses the back of her hand to Sarada’s forehead. Deciding that her daughter is a healthy temperature, she breathes a sigh of relief. Mama runs her fingers through the dark bangs, then, and tucks the hair behind her ears, which redden slightly with embarrassment. Mama has a talent of making her feel six again. “Does who love you?” There’s a faint wrinkle in her forehead, between the eyebrows and below her mother's seal. If the question weren’t so dire, Sarada would have giggled at the sight.

But the question is dire, so she scowls instead. “Papa,” Sarada responds, both answer and accusation.

Mama looks very, very tired. The crease in her forehead deepens. “I told you, Sarada-chan,” her mother says, each word dripping with exasperation, “Papa cares about us very much.”

“I know,” she huffs, “but that’s not the _question_ , Mama. Does he love me?”

“Of course he does,” the older woman replies, her jade eyes glowing. Mama's fingertips hover over her right temple.

Sarada looks at the fallen groceries, guilt swirling in her stomach. “But how can you say that?”

“Because,” Mama says with scientific conviction, as if she is recounting chakra networks and nerve endings, “loving you is the easiest thing in the world.”

Papa comes home late that night from a mission; at dinner, he sits at the table and asks her about her training, and after he finishes his bowl, he pads over to the sink to wash his and Mama’s dishes. Papa doesn’t say _I love you_ , but Sarada knows he does, because he sits at the table long after he’s done eating to hear about her day; because his lips curve upward when Mama’s hand brushes against his as she hands them the fruit she peeled and cut for dessert; because he remembers, in meticulous detail, each of the D-ranked missions she’s suffered through with her genin squad from her previous stories. 

“Papa,” she says, as they rise from the table together, “I love you.” He pauses, his mouth awkwardly moving to reciprocate. “No,” Sarada continues, “I didn't say it to hear it back. I said it to make sure you knew.”

Papa's gaze is as soft as his wife's namesake. He taps his index finger against the center of her forehead. “Our feelings are connected,” he tells her, absolute and honest and kind in a way that makes Mama throw her arms around both of them.

“Loving you is the easiest thing in the world,” Mama repeats, burying her face in Papa's shoulder. She steals a glance at her daughter and smiles a secret smile. Being with Papa is making up for lost time, but now that she’s older, Sarada knows this much: she grew up in the middle of a love story. And Sarada loves them, too, because she is Mama and Papa’s love story come to life.

**Author's Note:**

> This short little snippet is kind of a compilation of things I've been meditating on: the gaps between the way each generation might express love, on the Asian custom of cutting up fruit as love language, on my friend telling me that her father has never said I love you, but she knows that he does, because he sits with her. I also wanted an apple scene -- and as such, we have apples to apples, an idiom for reasonable comparison [between love languages here, I suppose?]. I hope you enjoyed!


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